Conference 2013

The 4th International Conference of Young Specialists Actual Problems of Theory and History of Art was held in Moscow on 21–24 November 2013. Hosted by the Faculty of History of Lomonosov Moscow State University, it continued the joint conference programme developed by the art history departments of MSU and Saint Petersburg State University.

Around one hundred senior students, postgraduate researchers, and early-career specialists took part, representing universities, museums, and research centres. Participants came from Russia as well as Germany, Serbia, Ukraine, Finland, and the Czech Republic. The working languages were Russian and English.

Academic scope

Russian art of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries was the principal focus in 2013. The wider programme extended across the ancient world and the medieval East, Eastern Christian and medieval Russian art, Russian art from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century, Western art of the medieval and modern periods, twentieth-century art, and art theory.

An opening plenary brought together scholars from MSU and SPbU with specialists from Moscow museums. The academic sessions were complemented by a poster exhibition and a final day devoted to contemporary culture and the architectural history of Moscow.

Conference programme overview

Emblem and publication

The conference emblem was Igor Gurovich's 2012 poster for Pyotr Fomenko's production An Absolutely Happy Village. The poster received the Grand Prix at the 10th Golden Bee Moscow International Biennale of Graphic Design.

Papers from the conference were published in Volume 4 (2014) of Actual Problems of Theory and History of Art. The volume contains articles in Russian and English on art from antiquity to the present and on questions of art theory.